The term “blood product” is understood to mean whole blood as well as any preparation stemming from the fractionation of whole blood, optionally comprising cellular components. The following can be cited as examples of blood products: concentrates of red cells or platelets, but also plasma or serum preparations.
Detection of contaminations of blood products and their derivatives by different pathogenic microbes such as bacteria, viruses, molds, yeasts and others, is one of the major problems facing the public health authorities at present as well as the blood transfusion industries. Detection tests exist, but they cannot be used on a routine basis at present. The principal problems presented by most of the tests for detecting such pathogenic microbes among a population or subpopulation of blood cells are that most of the treatments that are supposed to selectively extract the pathogenic microbes simultaneously cause an elimination of these microbes. This elimination leads almost systematically to an underassessment of the presence of the microbes in the blood product tested and, thus, to an increase in the health care risk. It would therefore be advantageous to provide a new, rapid, sensitive method for detecting contamination of a blood product or its derivative by pathogenic microbes.